RE: Word to Frame Tool?

["Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>]

Fiona Krycek wrote: 
 
> I don't suppose there are any free tools out there for this?
> 
> On 2/26/08, Martinek, Carla <CMartinek -at- zebra -dot- com> wrote:
> >
> > If you've used styles in Word consistently, it's not that 
> difficult of 
> > a process.  You'll need a target template in Frame to map 
> your styles 
> > to and a utility, such as Silicon Prairie's Paragraph Tools 
> that will 
> > map styles from one to another.  You can also do the same 
> thing with 
> > FrameScript, TemplateMapper (if it's still available), 
> Systec Toolbox, 
> > and a couple of other tools.

Actually, you don't need anything but Word and FrameMaker (and a good FM
template). I hugely prefer FM over Word, but Word is really the best
tool for preparing a Word doc for conversion to FM. Its style
management, powerful find/replace, and macro capabilities really come in
handy for projects like this. 

In Word, convert everything to pgf and char styles with names that match
the names of your FM pgf and char formats. It doesn't much matter what
the styles look like in Word, since they'll look like their FM namesakes
once you import the doc to FM. But convert the bulleted and numbered
styles to styles that don't have numbers (FM will import them as text;
then you'll have your autonumbering plus those). And make sure you plan
for the way the FM template handles numbering -- for instance, does the
FM template uses a "First" pgf format to restart list numbering, or do
other pgfs (body, headings, etc.) reset pgf numbering? 

Remove all the graphics -- you'll want to import them into the FM docs
by reference. If you don't have the original graphics (tsk! tsk!),
converting the Word docs to HTML should export the graphics to files,
but I don't recall the details or what control you have over format,
file names, etc. 

If there are lots of tables, there's no substitute for Rick Quatro's
TableCleaner plugin (see www.frameexpert.com) for cleaning up the
problems Word tables have when imported into FM. It will quickly pay for
itself. If that's really not an option, convert the tables to
tab-delimited text in Word, and then convert them back into tables in
FM. It will save you some headaches. 

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things. Check the archives -- others who've
done this more than I have have posted good advice in the past. 

HTH!
Richard


------
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
------




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